Microsoft's HD Photo to Become JPEG Standard?

Mortimer.CA writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has submitted their HD Photo to the JPEG committee: 'Microsoft's ongoing attempt to establish its own photo format as a JPEG alternative (and potential successor) took another step forward today when the JPEG standards group agreed to consider HD Photo (originally named Windows Media Photo) as a standard. If successful, the new file standard will be known as JPEG XR.' Microsoft has made a 'commitment to make its patents that are required to implement the specification available without charge.' While JPEG 2000 exists, HD Photo has several advantages (not the least of which is a lot less CPU power is needed). Is this a big of an issue as ODF/OOXML?"

Comments

As long as anyone can implement it ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The key issue is not whether it is coming from MSFT or if it gives MSFT any leg up. They key issue, can anyone implement the standard directly without payments, without agreements without any restrictions? MSFT can very well say, there is no payment but all implementors should sign some agreement with us. Then there could be a clause that could revoke the agreement. Thus if any competitor gets too big MSFT can pull the rug from under them.

If the specification is as free as ASCII, to use one example, then there is nothing wrong in adopting that as a standard.

Re:As long as anyone can implement it ...

[ajs]

They key issue, can anyone implement the standard directly without payments, without agreements without any restrictions? MSFT can very well say, there is no payment but all implementors should sign some agreement with us. Then there could be a clause that could revoke the agreement. You're not thinking deviously enough. What they REALLY want to do is have all of the most popular Web data formats require the use of their patents, and then issue a blanked right to use those patents for free to anyone... but in a way that's not GPLv3 compatible.

This is Microsoft's dream because you can't contest it in court. The agreement you're violating if you mix this technology with GPLv3 code is NOT the agreement with Microsoft, but the GPLv3! You would have to sue the FSF in order to use Microsoft's image format in your GPLv3 code.

For all that I despise the tactic, I have to admit that it's a clever little hack.

Re:can this be the only solution?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Microsoft makes their promise to make this free. The exact wording from the article is, "offer a royalty-free grant for its patents that are required to implement" --I'm sure there are more details to the offer, but just because it is royalty-free doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be other terms that are deal breakers.

Public Domain

[daeg]

If they are truly interested in making the patents "available", they would simply surrender the patents into the public domain. Since they have not done this, assume they will not always make the patents "available" to everyone or will have special cases where it is not available (for example, to extend the specification, or to set up a company that certifies HD Photo implementations, or "no government use without paying us", etc).

Re:can this be the only solution?

[LionKimbro]

Well, here's a thought --

They say, "One important aspect regarding the standardization of HD Photo is Microsoft's commitment to make its patents that are required to implement the specification available without charge."

"Alright, fair enough," I think, but then I wonder: "So, what's the application process like, and what are the licensing requirements?"

Might they say something like, "Oh, it's available free of charge, but you can't use it in an OpenSource / FreeSoftware project, because that's uncontrolled, there's no telling what liabilities we'll be exposed to, for letting you implement this, ... (etc etc etc, filler nonsense here.)" ..?

Maybe that's "the trick" here?

transfer all control or forget it

[DriveDog]

If MS gives away all rights to the format spec and any algorithms required to use it, fine. JPEG can declare particular implementations in compliance or not. Otherwise, no way.

Re:What's wrong with JPEG2000?

[cmowire]

The problems largely boil down to:

1. JPEG2000 is covered by patents that haven't been properly licensed
2. JPEG2000 has very little software support, wheras good old JPEG will work eveyrwhere. Which helps your average user who doesn't want to need an image editor.
3. The digital camera market has standardized to RAW for cases where JPEG isn't good enough. Neither the existing JPEG2000 nor HD Photo are designed to store un-demosaiced data from the sensor. This allows a RAW converter to offer smarter noise reduction and sharpening modes... and it's not trivial enough of an operation that any arbitrary JPEG2000-ish tool should be forced to implement properly.
4. People don't quite realized the level of screwed we are with respect to TIFF, so it still seems "good enough" for most folks.
5. Adobe, who has the photo-editing market by the balls, would rather have you stuck with their proprietary formats as much as possible.

The "evil" in MS's actions:

[Gr8Apes]

Well, the inability to use it in GPL v2/3 code would be the evil part that the OP was referring to. There you go.

Re:can this be the only solution?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

I did some early work with it when it was still Windows Media Photo. It's genuinely a good format. I just hope it doesn't get bogged down in politics and legal wrangling.

I won't speak to the potential for "legal wrangling", but regarding "politics", if this does get bogged down in politics then you can bet that it'll be the anything-but-Microsoft folks that are to blame. Hell, this very subthread starts with a post saying that this format should be rejected just because it comes from Microsoft, regardless of the merits and regardless of how liberal the license is. In other words, the format should be rejected on the basis of politics. The same BS that goes on in the ODF vs OOXML debates (the reality is that 90% of that debate is politics BS, not technical merits).